Efforts have been made to produce high-performance polymer fibers. For the category of thermotropic and lyotropic liquid-crystalline polymers, as an example, publications are available where reasonable success is being reported by directly spinning from the thermotropic melt or lyotropic solution and applying relatively high wind-up/extrusion speed (draw down) ratios that induce elongational flow fields causing the polymer molecules to orient in the direction of flow. For examples, see e.g. Muramatsu et al. in Macromolecules 19, 2850 (1986); and Wissbrun et al. in J. Polym. Sci. Pt. B-Polym. Phys. 20, 1835 (1982). Producing high-performance films and foils and other objects of these materials, however, has been less successful in one or more aspects. For examples, see e.g. Calundann et al. in Proceedings of the Robert A. Welch Conference on Chemical Research, XXVI. Synthetic Polymers, 280 (1982); U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,759; U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,016; Ide et al. in J. Macromol. Sci.-Phys. B23, 497 (1985); and Lusignea in Polym. Eng. Sci., 39, 2326 (1999).